News headlines in August 2019, page 3

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 24 (IPS) - Fourteen-year-old Fanta lives in a tent in a settlement in Zamaï, a village in the Far North Region of Cameroon with her mother and two brothers. They came here more than a year ago after her father and elder brother were murdered and her elder sister abducted by the extremist group Boko Haram.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 24 (IPS) - August is the month of major political crises in Brazil, but no one suspected that an environmental issue would be the trigger for the storms threatening the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, just eight months into his term.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 23 (IPS) - Two years after the start of an exodus of Rohingya civilians from genocide-like attacks in Myanmar, members of the mainly Muslim minority have little hope of securing justice, rights or returning to their homes, according to the United Nations and aid groups.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 23 (IPS) - As leaders of the seven major industrialised nations (G7) meet in the coastal seatown of Biarritz in the south west of France, one of the world's leading women's organisations is calling for the protection and advancement of women worldwide.

LHASA, Aug 22 (IPS) - According to the Tibet's Social Science Academy's Institute of Rural Economic Studies, the number of Tibetans still living in poverty has been brought down from 850,000 a few years ago to 150,000.

Tibetan officials say the government is committed to reducing that number to zero by the end of this year.

BANGKOK, Aug 22 (IPS) - Asia and the Pacific is lauded globally for its rapid economic growth over recent decades and has lifted 1.1 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990. Nevertheless, the region continues to have the largest number of poor people in the world.

KARACHI, Aug 21 (IPS) - Gulab Shah, 45, is having sleepless nights. He and his family are worried about their imminent migration from their village in Jhaloo to a major city in Pakistan, thanks to the continued ingress of sea water inland. 

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Aug 21 (IPS) - As I often do, I recently discussed the Syrian Civil War with a friend of Lebanese origin. He is far from supporting the Syrian regime, which occupied his country of origin between 1989-2008.

My friend assumes the Syrian government was behind the assassination of Lebanon´s prime minister Bachir Gemayel, who in 1982 together with 26 others were blown to pieces by a bomb planted at the headquarters of the Lebanese Forces. He also suspects Syria was behind the death of former prime minister Rafik Harari, who in 2005 was killed in a car bomb explosion.

However, this does not make my friend an admirer of Israel or the U.S., which together with Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia meddle in Syria´s bloody internal strife. It is an almost impossible task to disentangle the mess of warring fractions guided by corrupt politicians, religious fanatics, liberal politicians, bandits, Mafiosi and/or foreign commercial and strategical stakeholders.

COTONOU, Benin, Aug 20 (IPS) - While people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are slowly being made aware that scientists have discovered two drugs that are effective in treating Ebola, letting go of the fear and anxiety that has prevailed this year will require more work.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 20 (IPS) - The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which comprise 16 member states, loses about 8.8 billion dollars in trade-related illicit outflows and about 21.1 billion dollars in external government debt payments annually, according to a new report released here.